December 23, 2012

When “gun rights” and fascism meet

I watched the President of the United States of America give a speech, and was consumed with disgust. My contempt for the event was not a response to the particulars of what he had to say – it was a good response – Barack Obama is an adept at such things – but what sickened me was that it had to be given at all.

I then watched a response from the National Rifle Association, in which, among other obscenities, Wayne LaPierre, suggested that the solution to the problem that left 26 people dead, twenty of them children. His solution was to focus not on the loss that occuurred in Newton, CT. Though he pretended that he did. Instead, he led with an appeal ABOUT his own organisations members. Then he exhorted the relative silence on the topic as evidence of his organisation’s stoicism as to political motives.

His thesis, if it can be creditted as such, is that application of gun free zones was the causal effect of the Sandy Hook shootings. This has been debated amongst those pretending to the supposed ideology of libertarianism (it’s more a of a childish fantasy when one deconstructs it. Much like, in character as opposed to specifics, pacifism). What he does then, is blame the victim. Not the individual victim, of course, that would be in bad taste.

The NRA had two choices following this catastrophe. One was to have a sane discussion about extended clips and assault rifle bans. The other was to double down on the insane dogma that has kept them moving somehow throughout the years. Instead, his solution is the institution of a police state. That children ought be guarded at arms like banks, and politicians. He then proceeds to, for all purposes, blame the black and hispanic populations for the prevalance of gun violence. Only the supposed “Good Guys” with guns are the solution. The silent hero who for some reason hangs around school with a gun. His solution is so utterly juvenile that I wonder if he will suggest that we make Jack Bauer the head of Homeland security. It is a fiction.

He then decides to blame video games, movies and music with supposed evidence so thin and . I will tackle these in turn in another essay, but suffice to say his critique so boils over with dishonesty that it ought make the stomach churn. In the following paragraphs I could catalogue his dishonest rhetorical turns, but the basic gist is ultimately advocacy of a fascist police state. If there is a reserve of disgust and abhorrence at a concept that can be exhausted, then for me it is dry. If everybody has guns then that will solve all ills. The NRA are apparently for “assurance of school safety”. As if the schools don’t have enough problems.

Wayne LaPierre does what most fascists do, he abhors a particular piece of minor encroachment of the supposed rights of self-interested minority and then in response proposes a far bigger annulment of basic civil freedoms. Let us trust the men who advocate guns against those who it is supposed misuse them (though we are assured that such people are an unknowable minority). It is worth noting at this juncture that that the NRA is essentially a wing of the Republican party in the US. A party that perpetually trumpets personal freedom yet benobles military power and now seems to believe that there ought to be SERVICEMEN in “protection” of the children of that country. A party who are in part sponsored by what is soon to become an apartheid state. These people are little more than sociopaths with so little faith in humanity that they believe violence is the possible defence of the innocent within their own nation. Look through to the odious language he deploys and his solutions boil down to little more than the takeover of the education system of the US by the “Good Guys”. Note also, that they hate the current school system, and wish it altered. When they have guns in place and are the established “protectors”, under what guise will they impose their values?

It seems the extant question, yet no one asks it. The media express only outrage at “more guns” without thinking through the barbaric appeal that it foretells. The Democratic party as a mass won’t notice this, though may accidentally block its passage. The President probably knows this, and I doubt he is alone. But it will become POLITICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to do anything about it. It already is, most likely.